In the art of package handling, a conveyor has been traditionally employed to forward a package from one work station to another to accomplish the necessary filling, closing, labeling or securement of the package, such as by strapping, stapling, wrapping and the like.
It has often been found necessary to have the package secured or labeled both at the top and at the bottom and in the process the package has had to be inverted such that the top finds itself on the bottom and the bottom is at the top.
Moreover, if intermittent sorting is necessary, the conveyor device must function as a regular conveyor such that the package can be forwarded on to the discharge side of the conveyor without inverting the same. Still further, for packaging operations where the package must necessarily be secured at the top and bottom or some information or labeling placed both at the top and the bottom, it is necessary that these packages be selectively inverted as part of the work flow. Any handling of the package by a machinery that grips and/or turns the device requires additional space, generally perpendicular to the direction of the flow of the conveyor or overhead thereof and complicates the handling and/or space requirements.